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Florence Bouly defined what I thought Paris would be like

While I was in Paris, I had the opportunity to photograph and converse with, what I would call, one of the most influential women I met in my travels. She was adorned in amber, gold, and beaded jewels created by herself. She was wearing a hat that resembled the tail of a peacock in the distance. When I approached her and asked if I could photograph her, I was greeted by a scowl and the vernacular of the bourgeois. She knew I was American and she could smell the stench of a middle class man. She took a long drag of her cigarette, gestured for me to sit, and proceeded to ash her cigarette on the table next to where we were sitting. “I will give you ten minutes,” she replied in a heavy, French accent. As she finished her sentence, I found myself turning away from her to avoid the concoction of tobacco and expresso perfume that cradled each word in her sentence. She sat with her Hermes Ulysses memo book she pulled from her Birkin bag. “You know I was a model in my time,” she chuckled. Though she was laughing, a part of me believed her to be serious. After exchanging e-mails and going through the frames, we parted ways. It wasn’t until I got back o the states that I realized she not only designed Jewelry, clothes, and hats, but she was an amazing and well recognized artist in Paris. To this day, I still laugh about this woman and I keep her picture at the front of my portfolio. See for yourself. She defined the fashion I expected from Paris.